Russia Accuses West of Media Censorship on Universal Access Day

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/. Russia will continue to provide safe and decent working conditions for media outlets without discrimination, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary marking the International Day for Universal Access to Information.

The diplomat said Western countries have in recent years carried out a "sterile purge of views they dislike" in the media space.

"For our part, we will continue systematically working to ensure safe and decent working conditions for media employees without discrimination, dismantle the 'information barriers' artificially erected by the West, and defend the truth and equal access to it for everyone without exception," the spokeswoman said.

"What the leadership of the UN Human Rights Office, UNESCO and the OSCE needs today is not more empty declarations of commitment to fundamental media freedoms, but concrete steps to fulfill their mandates to bring an end to repressive Western censorship, protect journalists’ professional rights and ensure genuinely free access to information," she added.

Zakharova said that due to "aggressive actions by Western countries to carry out a sterile purge of the media space of views they dislike," the International Day for Universal Access to Information had largely become a "ritual calendar event" featuring lofty declarations by Western, primarily European, politicians that had nothing to do with reality. She said access to information for citizens of the "flourishing garden" countries continued to worsen due to artificially imposed technical, regulatory, administrative and other barriers serving those who persistently promote the purported "rules-based world order."

"Under these depressing circumstances, the relevant international institutions need a complete reset. Due to the dominance of representatives of Western countries in their executive structures, they have become tools that serve the selfish geopolitical interests of a narrow group of states," Zakharova said. "International officials have forgotten the principles of impartiality and equal distance, turn a blind eye to repression and even targeted attacks and killings of Russian journalists and war correspondents, make politicized statements, issue biased pseudo-reports and hold closed-door events that they attempt to present as coordinated action."